Imitation as rewriting: Zhou Zuoren’s approach to William Blake’s poems on children in May Fourth China

ABSTRACT

This article intends to incorporate imitation, the creative emulation of existing texts, into the framework of André Lefevere’s rewriting theory. Building on past translation theories, recent scholarship in translation studies, and the findings of related academic fields, it distinguishes two different meanings of the term imitation: the free method of translation commonly used in translation studies and the creative emulation of earlier models fruitfully explored in the study of hypertextuality and poetic influence. It argues that imitation in the second sense, offering illuminating insights into textual relations and literary influence, deserves to be conceived as a distinctive type of rewriting, since Lefevere habitually uses the word without purging it of the second meaning and readily acknowledges the possibility of new rewriting forms. By analyzing the celebrated Chinese intellectual Zhou Zuoren’s (1885–1967) appropriation of the English poet William Blake’s (1757–1827) poems on children in the May Fourth era (1915–1927), this essay demonstrates that imitation can not only exhibit the distinguishing features of Lefevere’s rewriting, but also provide fresh insights into translation studies and beyond through its assistance in identifying hitherto unknown borrowings from foreign literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Imitation
• rewriting
• Zhou Zuoren
• William Blake
• children

Acknowledgements

I want to thank the anonymous reviewers of Perspectives for their incisive comments and helpful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Youth Program of the National Social Science Fund of China under Grant number 18CWW019.

Notes on contributors

Hanjin Yan

Hanjin Yan is a lecturer in the Department of Translation at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications. His research interest covers literary translation and comparative literature.